Thieving Slugs

In the salty marshes in New England and Canada, there are some pretty awesome slugs. And believe it, for me to refer to a slug as "awesome", it must have done something amazing.

These slugs have actually stolen the genes from algae they have eaten and incorporated those genes into their own. The algae, of course, are photosynthetic and contain the green pigment chlorophyll. And as I am sure you remember from your biology class, chlorophyll is what absorbs sunlight so the plant can make its own food. The chlorophyll itself is not enough, however, for the slugs to perform photosynthesis, so they have also developed a way to steal the chloroplasts from algae as well.

Scientists have isolated a few of these critters and observed them in tanks. Apparently, the genes for chlorophyll can be passed on to the youngins', (Can anyone say "evolution"?) but the chloroplasts cannot. Algae, for now, must be eaten by the young slug in order to get the chloroplasts to perform photosynthesis. But once that has been accomplished, not more searching for food!